Social Media Newsfeed: Facebook Call | Zynga Loss | Social Media $

Facebook’s Day of Reckoning: Second Quarter Earnings Report (The Huffington Post)
Today, Facebook will take the spotlight once again, for its first earnings report as a public company. The release of its quarterly financial results will be the social network’s chance to prove to investors that it can continue growing revenue from the ads it serves on its popular social networking site. The Guardian Wall Street will be hoping co-founder Mark Zuckerberg steps forward with some reassuring remarks during tonight’s earning call. After booking a $1.1 billion charge for share-based payouts to staff and early investors at the public offering, the social network is forecast by its lead bank Morgan Stanley to report a $673 million loss before tax. AP It needs to keep its nearly 1 billion users logging on as often — and for as long — as possible, interacting with each other as well as with brands. As a result of that disclosure and others, many analysts reduced their estimates for Facebook’s projected revenue and earnings. The Wall Street Journal The consensus for Facebook’s second-quarter earnings report is that the Menlo Park, Calif., company will report 12 cents a share of profit and $1.15 billion of revenue for the quarter, according to Thomson Reuters. “One of the most-challenging times to model a company’s financials is when it’s very young,” said Mark Mahaney, an Internet analyst who covers Facebook for Citigroup. Bloomberg Businessweek Investors will be looking to glean a few crucial facts during the conference call. Can the company spark revenue in those regions, such as Asia, with high membership growth? Can it make advertising work on mobile devices such as the iPhone, where users are increasingly accessing the service?

Zynga Scales Back Outlook, Cites ‘Challenging Environment’ on Facebook Platform (AllFacebook)
The stock of popular Facebook application developer Zynga has dropped despite growing revenue, which the company reported Wednesday in its second-quarter financial results. Zynga noted that it is scaling back its outlook for the rest of 2012, citing a challenging environment on Facebook’s platform. The Wall Street Journal The San Francisco, Calif. company reported that its year-over-year revenue growth slowed to 19 percent, down from 32 percent in the prior quarter. The weak results immediately sent the company’s shares into free fall. USA Today It wasn’t that long ago that Zynga stormed the social-games scene with popular titles such as Mafia Wars and CityVille played widely across Facebook. But recently it has come under increasing pressures as the landscape shifts to mobile and grows more competitive.

Study Says Social Media Could Add $1.3 Trillion to the Economy(The New York Times/Bits Blog)
McKinsey Global Institute, the research arm of the business-consulting giant, has just published a lengthy study on “unleashing value and productivity through social technologies.” The short version is that things like improved communication and collaboration from social media in four major business sectors could add $900 billion to $1.3 trillion in value to the economy.

Greek Olympian Booted From Games for Tweeting Racial Joke (Mashable)
Greek Olympian Voula Papachristou has been kicked off her country’s Olympic team for a racial joke she posted to Twitter. The triple jumper posted this tweet earlier this week, which roughly translates to: “With so many Africans in Greece … at least the West Nile mosquitoes will eat homemade food!!!”

TripAdvisor Got More Social, Reached 32 Million Facebook Users in Second Quarter (SocialTimes)
Once an online destination for anonymous (and often brutal) hotel reviews, TripAdvisor has been working more closely with Facebook to make the site a friendlier recommendation engine and mobile app for travelers. In addition to joining Facebook’s Timeline, the company also revived its Local Picks app, which gives locals a chance to rate restaurants in their own neighborhoods.

Twitter to Reveal Identity of Spoof Newspaper Boss Account (BBC)
Twitter has warned the owner of an account (@UnSteveDorkland) spoofing a newspaper executive that he is to reveal his identity to the company. Northcliffe Media, which is owned by the Daily Mail Group, issued a subpoena to the social network through a Californian court.

Square’s New $200M Makes Dorsey a Billionaire, Report Says (CNET)
Square has once again raised a ton of money, closing a $200 million round of funding that will make CEO Jack Dorsey a certified paper billionaire, according to those watching the industry. The funding, which is twice the amount the company raised last year, puts a valuation of $3.25 billion, an unheard of amount for a three-year-old, privately held company, according to PrivCo, a research firm that specializes in private companies’ financial data.

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